Welcome to Wrexham is one of those TV shows that has moved its genre up a level. After years of glossy “behind-the-scenes” documentaries that were just another part of million-dollar sports franchises’ marketing portfolios, the story of unlikely celebrity investors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney taking the extremely unlikely decision to buy AFC Wrexham was an unexpected tonic and a worldwide hit.
Inevitably, imitations are now spawning, with Amazon last month debuting the underwhelming Built in Birmingham, about NFL superstar Tom Brady’s half-hearted involvement in Birmingham City. Necaxa should have better prospects, since it’s on Disney+, the same platform as Welcome to Wrexham, and Reynolds and McElhenney are in it. But all the peculiar magic of the parent show is painfully absent.
Club Necaxa was the biggest team in Mexico City until the turn of the millennium, when it fell into decline, outspent and outplayed by its city rivals Club América, Cruz Azul and Pumas. So in 2003, Necaxa relocated an hour and a half’s drive north to Aguascalientes. The Mexican first division abandoned promotion and relegation in 2020, so Necaxa’s elite status is secure, but in its new home it has found it hard to make the playoffs, let alone challenge for the league title.
Desperate Housewives star Eva Longoria, who has diversified from acting and directing into commercial ventures, was part of the consortium that invested in Necaxa in 2021. The documentary begins in April 2024 and proceeds as if Longoria were the sole financial saviour of the club, nicknaming her La Patrona (“the boss”) and largely relying on her to fill us in on Necaxa’s history and desired future. As for Longoria herself: she grew up in Texas with a father of Mexican descent who had longed for a son but found joy in sharing his love of the Dallas Cowboys with his youngest daughter, Eva, who later married a Mexican businessman and moved to Mexico City. Having spent her early career as an English-speaking American whose Latina looks limited the roles she was offered, Longoria is now ensconced in Mexican life without feeling as if she fully belongs there or in the US.
In her conversations with the camera, the problem with the series becomes clear: the stakes are too low. Longoria would like to recapture the excitement of the Cowboys winning the Super Bowl, and she’d like to win the respect of the club’s players and staff, despite her Spanish being “horrible”. But these are just things that would be quite nice for her. They’re not enough for us to invest. Longoria’s interactions with people from the club tend to involve her laughing uproariously at nothing while everyone else politely sits there.
Similarly, the players’ backstories are workaday recollections of training hard as youngsters, with jumpers for goalposts (or in the case of midfielder Diego “Chili” Gómez, piles of dirt) and great odds to overcome. The predicament of the club isn’t laden with jeopardy, either: Necaxa may not have won the top division for a while, but at least they’re in it. It’s as if Reynolds and McElhenney had bought Aston Villa or Everton instead of a non-league club on the verge of oblivion.
The people of Aguascalientes, meanwhile, are indifferent towards Necaxa, which is a relatively new addition to the area and is just a bit frustratingly rubbish. If it keeps losing, they’ll shrug and go back to supporting Club América, or Guadalajara giants Chivas. In Wrexham, it felt as if the futures of the club and the town were existentially intertwined, but stories of fans whose devotion to football is a key part of their identity aren’t in evidence here, because nobody feels that way about Necaxa. This is more about Eva Longoria than any ordinary folk.
It’s difficult, then, to care about whether Necaxa bounce back, but here come extensive match highlights anyway, with all the familiar grammar of the modern football doc. The action is filmed at ground level, more cinematically than standard live coverage, with plenty of reaction shots from the crowd and (more often) the directors’ box, accompanied by conveniently informative commentary that may or may not be authentic recordings made at the time. A switch to slow motion and a dip in the music signal that someone’s about to score.
When Necaxa get slapped about by Monterrey in the final game of the 2024 season, it’s time to call on “Los Gringos”: Reynolds and McElhenney, minority investors in the club and executive producers of the series, pop up to lend their trademark unequal-buddy comedy to the show – they’ve worked up a gag about the less successful and busy Rob making Ryan look bad by spending more time learning Spanish – and to give Longoria tips via FaceTime.
“We’re scared of La Patrona!” says Reynolds, with his usual nervous self-deprecation. Longoria laughs, heartily, and on her own.
